'Chicago Fire' boss says emotional finale will spell death for major character

After the news came through earlier this week that NBC has decided to renew Chicago Fire for another season, fans can expect things to get even more heated on the firefighting drama show. After last night return, three more episodes remain in this season, and executive producer Matt Olmstead took some time to clear the air about some hot topics fans are buzzing about.

Shay and Severide have been actively trying to have a baby, which may have seemed like a rash decision by Shay after having her heart broken, but Olmstead says that this is not the case. Fans will not have to wait too long to find out if the in vitro fertilization process will work for best friends Shay and Severide. “At the end of the season, we get the answer in terms of whether she’s pregnant or not,” Olmstead says. “One of the big season-ending surprises we have is that there’s a romantic interest of his who we’ve seen on the show who comes back to [Severide] and it comes at a time when he and Shay are domesticating. That throws a major wrench into the plan to have a child with Shay. Someone comes back from his past and throws everything upside down.”

As for the complicated romantic life of the show’s male lead, Casey, things will not get any easier in this season’s remaining episodes. The return of Hallie brings with it confusion and doubt for Casey. “She does come back into his life and that’s a further complication for that whole [Dawson-Mills-Casey] triangle,” says Olmstead. “When she returns, it’s a new Hallie — having found herself and having given it some thought and realizing the old adage of ‘you don’t realize what you got until it’s gone,’ which again, complicates things.”

Olmstead also talked about an upcoming death in the show which will deeply affect at least one member of the department, and will also serve to bring more cops into the Chicago Fire world (to bridge the gap between Chicago Fire and its new cop spinoff). Casey is no stranger to dealing with dirty cops (Voight, anyone?) and he death will force the departments together once again. ”There was certainly some well-founded mistrust from our guys in particular,” Olmstead says. “Now they’re having to lean on them.”

All-in-all, Olmstead says a lot of loose ends will be tied up in the finale, but that doesn’t mean it won’t leave fans with some additional questions when it is over. “If you look at our endings [this season], we like to mix it up. There’s the emotional, cathartic ending and the cliffhanger ending in every episode. So we’ve sort of combined that in [episode] 24. We have emotional payoff and answers emotional questions we’ve posed and emotional cliffhangers,” says Olmstead. “[There is] the possibility of a character leaving the firehouse, looking for a cleaner slate somewhere else.”